


Without Words

by egosoffire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Implied/Referenced Torture, Interrogation, M/M, Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egosoffire/pseuds/egosoffire
Summary: Sam is recovered and Bucky's tasked with finding out what he revealed to their enemies.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Without Words

**Author's Note:**

> Although it isn't super graphic, there is referenced and implied torture.

Sam was safe. 

Bucky repeated three words over and over, both in his head and aloud, trying to convince himself of the fact. He paced and took a deep breath before crossing the conference room, where he and Steve waited for the rest of the team. 

“He is safe,” Steve repeated after Bucky muttered the phrase for about the hundredth time. “Bucky, he’s hurt, but he’s going to recover. Sam’s made of tougher stuff than you can possibly imagine…”

“They tortured him.” 

Bucky took a deep breath, the words radiating through the core of his soul. Sam had been tortured for information by the same people who bred the Winter Soldier. It hurt deeper than he could express. He let out the breath he’d taken, a shudder passing through him. It didn’t matter that these HYDRA agents weren’t the same ones. The cruelty and precision of it - it was all the same.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. He walked across the room and sat in one of the padded chairs surrounding the round table. “Bucky, try to hold on to your emotions, okay? I know what he means to you…”

Bucky winced at that. While he had never admitted aloud to his feelings, Steve knew him better than anyone. Bucky crossed the room to stand across the table from Steve. He put both hands on the table and tried to open his mouth to deny it, but found that he could not. A choked sob left him, and he tried again to control it. He was not about to break.

“I haven’t told anyone yet,” he whispered. “How did you…”

Steve got up from the chair and stood beside him. He laid a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, making him flinch.

“You’ve changed, but you’re still Bucky. I know you better than anyone. I can see the way your eyes light up when he walks into the room.”

It surprised him how easily the tears came. He had figured that crying had been lost to him, just like so many other things. 

“He’s given me so much hope,” he whispered. He wiped at his eyes, the metal of his fingers cold against his face. “I didn’t think I’d ever have a normal life again, Steve. He treats me like a human being and… he appreciates who I am. I didn’t think I’d ever be as happy as I was a couple weeks ago watching bad movies and eating pizza on his couch. He’s just…he’s so special, and I’m falling so hard…”

Shit. Why was he talking about this now? Sam was unconscious, sedated, and in intensive care after being  _ tortured.  _ His stupid feelings were meaningless. 

“This is so ridiculous. Why am I talking about this? It’s not… It doesn’t matter.” 

“It matters.”

Bucky stepped away from Steve and forced himself to sit in one of the chairs. 

“All that really matters is that he comes back to us.”

“Yeah…”

Bucky knew what Steve thought when his best friend sank down in the chair next to his. Of course, Sam’s strength and wellness was their absolute priority, but there was the matter of the information. Sam had been taken by people looking for information, and his broken body made it clear that they had extracted it. What SHIELD secrets did the enemy now possess? It felt callous to even think of those things, but he knew that whatever Sam had divulged could be devastating. It could risk thousands of lives. 

“Whatever got out, we’ll handle it,” Steve said, meeting Bucky’s eyes. It was amazing to him how he and Steve could still hold wordless conversations. “Sam will never be made to feel guilty for what he told them. He’s strong, and he survived what they did to him. So, we’re going to make this okay…”

Bucky knew that nothing would ever be okay about this, but he was consoled by Sam’s strength. He would make sure that nobody made him feel guilty for what he’d said. Torture broke a person. That’s all there was to it. Sam was a strong man and had done what he could to withstand. 

The moment of silence was interrupted by a young agent. He looked like a kid to Bucky, all clean cut with bright blue eyes. 

“Sirs,” he said, looking to Steve deferentially. It was amazing how they looked at Steve. Discomfort crossed his features, and he bowed his head. “Video footage of the… interrogation has been uncovered. Agent Romanoff has insisted to our superiors that it not be viewed by anyone until you give the okay. That being said, it’s… crucial that we know.” 

“We have to know,” Steve agreed, the growing horror dawning on him. Someone had to watch video evidence of what Sam had endured. They needed exactly what had been leaked and that would dictate how to deal with it from there. “We have to authorize someone to watch it so that they know…” 

“I have to do it.”

Even as he said the words, Bucky wished that there was another way. He was already haunted by decades worth of nightmares. He couldn’t escape them, and this was one more thing that was going to be added to his list. He let out a breath and closed his eyes. 

“That way he doesn’t have to endure the indignity of someone else watching him hurt,” Bucky said before Steve could voice any type of objection. He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I have you to vouch for me, and people are going to trust what Captain America says, right?”

“Bucky, I can…” 

“Steve, I’ll take this one. What’s another nightmare, right?”

There was nothing that Bucky wanted less than to shoulder this burden, but he owed that much to Sam. As he got closer to Sam, he was starting to learn about the inner workings of who he was. He could put his own neck on the line right now so that Sam could have some sort of peace after all the incredible pain he’d survived. 

\-- 

The video was grainy, but there was no mistaking it for what it was. Sam grinned at his captors with a raging bravado that made Bucky’s heart swell with pride. “Are we gonna get to the good stuff, or are we just here to  _ talk?”  _ Sam asked, presumably in response to someone’s rambling monologue. That part had been cut off.

The grainy man lashed out, striking Sam, hard. 

Bucky held his breath. He didn’t permit himself to move. He knew that he could close his eyes; all he needed was to hear Sam’s words, find out what Sam had revealed. He didn’t have to look at the man he’d fallen in love with, watch as he was torn apart. He found himself thinking of Sam’s wounds to try to prepare himself for what was coming.

Small, deep burns on his arms and legs.

A dozen broken, nearly splintered bones.

The sounds started quickly. They beat him before they even started asking questions, a show of power and dominance. They were the ones calling the shots, and he was theirs, whether he thought so or not. 

Sam’s screams would haunt him for the rest of his life. 

Bucky didn’t allow his face to change as he watched in horror. He never took his eyes away, bearing witness to the suffering of the man he loved. While he did this, he listened to the questions.

Sam answered nothing.

As it escalated, Bucky’s heart shattered into the tiniest pieces, but Sam said nothing. 

Toward the end of the tape, the screams echoed, and Bucky lost his composure, but instead of stopping, he leaned forward, grabbed the nearest trash bin and threw up. All the while, he still listened. All the while, the battered soldier said nothing. 

Bucky finished getting sick and lifted his head. 

Sam was knocked unconscious, and the video ended. 16:14. He touched the communicator device wrapped around his left wrist and contacted Steve.

“Steve, what time did we find Sam?” 

“16:20.” 

Despite the pain, the images that were going to haunt him for the rest of his days, Bucky let out a sob of relief.

“The video ended six minutes before we found him,” he whispered. “Oh God, Stevie…” 

“Bucky, what’s going on? Did you watch the video? Is it over?”

A weary smile crossed his face.

“Unless he started talking in six minutes…” Bucky managed the words with a laugh, “Sam didn’t say anything.” 

\--

Sam slept peacefully, at least considering the condition his body was in. Bucky listened to the steady in and out of his breath, his own eyes half-closed from exhaustion. Sam would need a few more surgeries in the future to repair broken bones and internal trauma, but he was out of the woods. He’d be okay. Sam would survive. The doctor predicted that he’d wake up any time now. This was the reason Bucky wasn’t moving.

  
Not until he saw Sam’s eyes open.

Sam’s face was dark with bruising, the worst of it around the left eye. There was a fracture there, according to the medical report, but it wasn’t severe enough to warrant immediate treatment. His lips parted slightly with each breath. 

Evidence of what had been done to him was mostly covered in bandaging and plaster. It made Bucky want to scream, but he repressed that urge.

Sam took a deep breath, and Bucky’s eyes immediately darted towards the monitor at his bedside, but the spike was only momentary, and no, Sam wasn’t awake.   
Bucky could hear Sam’s desperate, tormented cries in the back of his mind. They lingered, like something he could actually hear in the far-off distance. The way that his screams had turned into low whimpers, desperate pleas for it to stop. Bucky put his head in his hands and tried not to yell. Luckily, he was pretty good at suppressing those sounds. 

It wasn’t fair. 

Sam didn’t deserve the torment they had put him through. A voice that sounded eerily like his therapist’s reminded him that nobody deserved anguish and pain; these things just happened sometimes, and some people were burdened with more. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it just was.   
God, he loved Sam. Before all this, Bucky debated with himself constantly over what his feelings were, but now he was more confident than ever. He had fallen for people in his past life, but nothing ever ached so profoundly or felt so real. It was like his feelings for Sam had suddenly become a part of who he was. He loved the kind, generous, brave soldier of a man. 

It honestly didn’t scare him anymore. As long as Sam was okay. The rest would all fall into place - if only he would just wake up.

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Bucky said softly. “We did everything we could to get to you in time, but we failed. I wish we had been able to get to you soon enough to stop…” Bucky trailed off. There was another thing that his therapist always warned him against. He was guilty of often trying to live in the past, in a world of should-haves. 

“I know it’s stupid to think like that,” he sighed. He reached over and took Sam’s left hand. That side hadn’t been battered and broken. “It happened, and now we have to face it, but still… I promise that Steve and I are gonna be there for you through all of this. No matter what. You’re gonna have me right here.”

He let out a deep sigh. It felt so strange talking to Sam while he was unresponsive. 

“You’ve really changed things for me,” he said. He knew it probably wasn’t great to talk about himself, but Sam couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry. I just need to let this one out. You’ve been…instrumental in getting me back, making me sure that I could have a life. You’ve always treated me like a person, a friend, and even sometimes like a bit of an annoyance. It’s meant a lot, Sam.” 

Bucky found that the words just poured out of him.

“I mean, god, you talked to me like a human when I was still…still so deep inside of their programming. The conversation we had just before I let the Wakandan scientists put me back under… it gave me so much hope.” 

A lot of his memories surrounding that time were still hazy, a blur around them, but there was one thing that he could remember. 

“This is just the beginning,” Sam had promised him, quiet words between Bucky and a man he hardly knew. “Don’t worry, man. Just hang on.”

Those words had stuck with Bucky. Sam had been in so much uncertainty, ready to run, a fugitive from the law, and he had time to say those simple words before he and Steve fucked off to wherever they hid first. It had given him hope in a time when he hadn’t thought hope would ever exist again.   
It was a time when he thought Steve would be better off just shooting him between the eyes and letting go.

“I love you Sam,” he murmured. The words sounded strange. Bucky came from a time when those words weren’t said so freely. He didn’t exactly understand how to say them, but there they were. They were easy to feel, at least, the feelings deep inside of him and oh-so comforting. “I really love you.”

Sam’s eyes opened in response.

Their eyes met, and Bucky’s relief overwhelmed him. Sam seemed hazy, and it was likely he had no idea where he even was, but just seeing that he was alive and well and looking into Bucky’s eyes meant just about everything. Bucky let out a sigh, and it came out as more of a sob.

“Bucky?” Sam asked. His voice was slurred, the fracture on his face garbling the speech. “What you cryin’ about?”

Bucky laughed softly, the tears coming whether he wanted them or not. 

“Hospital?” Sam asked after a moment, looking around with the slightest incline of his head. His eyes darted around, and then he closed them again. “Dizzy…”

“Don’t try to move too much,” Bucky warned him gently. “Secure hospital. It’s safe. You’re safe.”

It took a while for recognition to return to Sam’s face. His eyes opened again, delicately, as though he wasn’t quite sure it was safe to do so.   
“I heard you whining; had to wake up.” 

The crack was half-assed at best, but the fact that it was Sam and he was alive to make a stupid crack meant everything. 

But had he heard... 

“I’m right here,” Bucky promised, taking hold of Sam’s free hand again. “You’re going to need to rest. I’ll get the doctor in here.”

“Is it bad?” 

Sam’s question caught him off guard, and Bucky wasn’t even sure how to answer. Sure, it was bad. Sure, the screams from Sam would haunt him for the rest of his life. Yet, the fact that he was alive meant that it wasn’t too bad for them to get through. They would be okay, even if it didn’t seem like it right then. Sam would be okay, and Bucky had a reason to keep going. 

“Well, you aren’t your normal beautiful self,” Bucky said, his own words weak. “Sam, I’m so sorry we didn’t get there sooner. We had so much conflicting intelligence, and it just confused everything. We fought so hard for you… we didn’t mean to fail you…” 

“You didn’t fail, dumbass.”

Bucky went to go get the doctor, but Sam refused to let go of his hand. For someone so weak, it was surprising that he could still hold on. 

“Wait for just a second,” Sam insisted. “Just so glad I get to see your stupid face again. God, I didn’t think…” 

“You can see my stupid face whenever you want,” Bucky said, as he squeezed his hand and then leaned down and kissed it. “Just let me get the doctor so they can take care of you.” 

A week later, Sam was in better condition. Bucky sat across from him, and they were both quiet for a moment. Then, Sam laughed.

“What?” 

“I’m sorry, but the sad puppy look you keep giving me is so funny,” Sam said warmly. “Bucky, I know you’re worried, but I’m doing good. I got a few more surgeries, and I’m not running any laps or anything, but I’m alive and well, and it’s okay…” 

“I know,” Bucky got up and walked to his bedside. “I can’t help it. The way we found you…”

“I can’t imagine it was pretty,” Sam agreed, shifting his hips so that there was a tiny gap on the bed. “Sit here.”

“There is not enough room for me there,” Bucky said with a laugh. 

“C’mon, try it.” 

Bucky awkwardly wedged himself into the empty space next to Sam. 

“I thought I was going to die,” Sam said after another moment of silence. “I had pretty much prepared for it. The pain of it was making me delirious, and I didn’t think there was any way a man could live through what they were doing. So I… I made peace with it, I guess. I always knew the risks this life came with.” 

Bucky swallowed. He understood instinctively that Sam was trying to process what had happened to him, but that didn’t make hearing it any easier.

“I watched the video,” he confessed. He had been trying to work through how to breach this with Sam. He had eventually decided that he would outright say it; he would tell Sam when he was ready - when he thought that  _ Sam  _ might be prepared to know. “I had to, Sam. I was the only one. I didn’t want anyone else to have to see. We just had to know that you didn’t say anything…”

Sam took a deep breath, visibly paling. 

“I didn’t want that for you.” 

“I…I couldn’t subject Steve to that, or have some random agent watch you in such a position. It had to be me. It could only be me.” 

Sam used his good arm and pulled Bucky into what had to substitute for a hug, as injured as he was. He held him close and let out a sound that was suspiciously close to a sob. 

“I have to tell you,” Sam rasped against his shoulder. He did not lift his head; it appeared that he was afraid to raise his gaze. “Bucky, I know this is really not the time or place, but I was going to tell you before they got me. Please don’t hate me, but I have these feelings I can’t handle…”

It was bizarre to see Sam rambling. Sam Wilson was so calm and collected, so confident and sure of himself. He seemed to Bucky like the most stable part of their wild lives. He was always there, and Bucky was thankful for him just  _ being  _ there. Now, here he was raving incoherently.

Bucky nudged him, and Sam reluctantly looked up. Their eyes met, and Sam lifted his head so that he was staring directly at Bucky.

Bucky decided that Sam had been brave enough; it was his turn to be the brave one. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Sam’s.

“Me too,” he whispered before kissing him again. He pulled back and looked at Sam through the tears in his eyes. “Me too…” 

Words could often lead a person to their breaking point, but some things were without words. He knew Sam would be okay, and in the end, that meant everything. 


End file.
